Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 147, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1915 — ENDOWED WITH LIFE? [ARTICLE]

ENDOWED WITH LIFE?

OLD ENGINEER HAS IDEA ABOUT LOCOMOTIVES. Study of Telepathy Convinced Him That His Notions When He Was Handling the Levers Were Pretty Nearly Correct After 30 years at the throttle in the service of one of the great trunk lines going out of New York, Sylvester P. Ames, locomotive engineer, retired recently and prepared himself to loaf away the remainder of his life. He found it impossible to loaf, however, and yearned for a hobby or something else that would compensate him for the loss of rattle and roar so long a part of his existence. A friend suggested a study of telepathy, in which -he was deeply engrossed. Ex-Engi-neer Ames took the tip, went to the New York public library, surrounded himself with works of Lodge and Pedmore and other kindred authors and soon became known as a telepathic “fan.”

The other evening an old-time friend called at the Ames flat in Brooklyn and thought to spend an hour or two in a game of cribbage, of which the old engineer was at one time very fond. No use. Ames was surrounded by a wall of books covering the subject of thought transference, hallucinations, haunted houses and phantasms. The visitor touched on old times on the railroad, hoping to get Ames away from the spirits. He got him away—but in an odd fashion. The old engineer closed up his books and turned to his friend with the following: “Do you know, Bill, since I been studying these telepathy books I’m more’n ever convinced that locomotives are alive the same as we are alive. I always had a notion that way, but I used to keep it to myself for fear that folks would laugh. But when I read the statements of reputable people who’ve seen ghosts, and one in particular where a lady’s pet mare let her know by a vision that a bad shoe had played havoc with her hoof, I feel certain that inanimate things as well as animate things think and feel. “When I was running the old 826 I often noticed that just before we met and passed the 827 my locomotive would act in a peculiar way. She wouldn’t run so steady. Sort of nervous in her drivers. She and the 827 were turned out of the shop the same day and they were put on the same run,' only working, in' opposite directions.

“So, as I tell you, whenever I, on the 826, neared the 827 coming the opposite way I noticed a queer quiver all through her. When we got within a quarter of a mile of each other the 826 hissed and chugged a blame sight more’n she ought to and so it kept up till we had passed each other, when my locomotive settled down to her regular common-sense average way of behaving.

“I know now, since I’ve read these books, that 826 was just sending a message to 827 through space. I remember I wrote a letter to Pete Riley, the man who ran 827, asking him—of course in a joking way, as I didn’t want to be joshed—if 827 acted queer cm him at any time. He answered me, and sure as you live, he declared that 827 acted like an old fool dummy or switch engine whenever he neared and passed me on the line. Without a doubt these locomotives were communicating with each other. “Tea, sir, the books make a lot of things plain that just seemed unexplainably queer in the old days. I recall that whenever on a stormy night old 826 pulled us into the terminal right on the tick of the clock as per time-table, I used to swell up with

a sort of gratitude toward her. Often when nobody was looking at the end of a trip through the rain or the snow, with the culverts just ready to burst over the tracks, I’ve gone up alongside that old engine, making believe I was going to oil her. I’d look around to see if anyone was looking and if there wasn’t I’d pat the old locomotive on her boiler, the same as you’d pat a fellow on the back. And I’d whisper: “ ‘You turned the trick fine, old girl, turned it fine. You’re the stuff, all right.’ “And do you know, although there was no reason at all for it, old 826 would thump in her exhaust twice as loud as she had been thumping? Yes, sir, thump- twice as loud. I wasn’t sure what it meant then, but now I know she realized that I was praising her and wanted to send me a message that she was tickled over the praise. I never would have been sure, though, if it hadn’t been for the ideas these books have set going in me. “Haven’t you ever felt warm toward things they say aren’t alive, just because they have been of service to you? I have, Bill, many a time. "Yes, and no doubt that old cribbage deck of cards is sore because you don’t handle it any more,” said Bill as /he took his leave.